Cornucopia of art

September has got my head spinning as there is so much going on in the art scene.

Despite the Covid-19 restrictions, art is not just filling the galleries and museums, but also occupying bookshops, country clubs, foreign cultural centres, and new boutique cafés.

The abundance of Kenyan artistic expression has even registered internationally. It’s elicited comments recently from BBC, Financial Times; and just last week, Kenyan artists were featured on a German TV.

The reason Nairobi especially is getting noticed is because of what is happening right here and now. Part of it could be that the government has finally aligned itself with artists committed to building a National Art Gallery.

To advance that effort the Nairobi Museums and Ministry of Culture launched an exhibition last Friday night entitled ‘Kesho Kutua’ and featuring five of Kenya’s most globally acclaimed artists. They include Peterson Kamwathi, Beatrice Wanjiku, Michael Wafula, Dennis Muraguri, and Peter Ngugi.

It is a lovely exhibition, but it overlaps with two other shows that are underway.

One is in NNM’s Creativity Gallery where John Kariuki and Jimmy Githeka both explore aspects of Nairobi life, only together theirs has a chiaroscuro effect, with Kariuki’s art-filled with bright blue equatorial light while Githeka paints beneath the shadows of night.

Then next door, the Uber Hall features both ‘Kesho Kutua’ at one end and the Ministry’s other-supported showcase of works. It includes newcomers, elders like Zarina Patel and Kibacha Gatu, and mid-lifers like Etale Sukuru and Ndekere Mwaura, the Kenyatta University art lecturer who helped coordinate the whole symposium and show. So here is more proof that Kenya needs a National Art Gallery, just as former vice president, Joseph Murumbi had insisted back in 1966.

Further evidence of the vitality of Nairobi’s visual art scene is that all the galleries are filled with exciting exhibitions. It starts with Banana Hill Gallery where a new exhibition opened on Saturday featuring Kenyatta University lecturer Anne Mwiti, Kenyan-Jamaican Mazola wa Mwashighadi, and Nigerian painter Adesina Ademola. Then, at One Off gallery, both of their major galleries are filled with new works by either Beatrice Wanjiku or Anthony Okello.

And at Circle Art gallery, another brand-new solo exhibition opened Wednesday. It’s entitled ‘Magic of Forgotten Places’ and features works by the young Sudanese artist, Miska Mohmmed whose paintings will be at Circle Art through September 28.

Meanwhile, at Red Hill Gallery, Hellmuth Musch-Rossler is pulling out all the stops to showcase some of the best of his vast collection of original works by mainly leading contemporary Kenyan artists. They include artists like Shabu Mwangi, Paul Onditi, Peterson Kamwathi, Beatrice Wanjiku and Michael Musyoka.

Then there are artists like Evans Ngure, Nikita Fazel, Milena Weichelt, and Usha Harish who chose to make the new Bookworm Library (which already blends books with a ‘Pot Pourri’ of Eastern fashions) their art venue of choice. It is at the Gigiri Craft Centre just next to the United Nations. Artists are there with imaginative sculptures, paintings, and photography.

And there’s a new boutique café and gallery called Noir (off Nairobi’s Waiyaki Way) exhibiting an array of Kenyan artists, most especially Gakunju Kaigwa whose sculptures often combine beauty and functionality.

What is fascinating is that even country clubs like the one in Karen have become venues where Kenyans are the main buyers of local artists’ works. That includes works by artists like Kamau Kariuki, Coster Ojwang, Simon Muriithi and many others all curated by Tom Siambey.

Finally, it was at Alliance Francaise that I found new works by all but two of the members of the Brush tu Artists Collective. Elias Mung’ora is not at the show as he just had a show in New York with Montague Contemporary.

Meanwhile, Boni and Musyoka (the other Brush tu cofounders) are two of Kenya’s most dynamic, imaginative, thoughtful, and expressive visual artists working actively right now. But they are not alone. Brush tu has attracted some of the most creatively curious young artists around. They include Abdul Kiprop, Peteros Ndunde, Lincoln Mwangi, Sebawali Sio, Bushkimani Moira, and Emmaus Kimani.